ALLERHEILIGEN AND ALLERSEELEN

Days remembering and commemorating the dead have been observed by
peoples all over the world. In the northern countries, as days grew
shorter and nights longer and as the year wound down, it became a time
to focus on the mystery of human death. Especially in Germany there
are, in November, many commemorations of the dead. Allerheiligen
(All Saints) and Allerseelen (All Souls) are celebrated in Catholic
areas at the beginning of November. November 9 is the commemoration
of the Kristallnacht (crystal night) pogrom. On the 3rd Sunday in
November the German Volkstrauertag (Memorial Day) is observed. On
the last Sunday before Advent is Totensonntag (Sunday of the Dead)
when Protestant Christians remember their dead. It corresponds to
the Catholic All Souls Day. On the Wednesday before, the original
Protestant "Buss- und Bettag" (Day of Repentance and Prayer) takes
place. The last Sunday before Advent is also the last Sunday of the
Church Year. The new Church Year is ushered in with Advent and the
expectation of Christmas.

All Saints/All Souls became focal points of veneration of the dead
ever since Pope Gregory in 835 initiated the church wide celebration.
Dates still fluctuate somewhat. In Bavaria and Austria the time
between October 30 through November 8 is celebrated as "Seelenwoche"
(All Souls Week). Hallowtide is a time to remember and honor the
dead, and it is a time when the "veil between the worlds," this
world and the next, is "thinner" than normally.

By the end of the middle ages, the celebration of Allhallows Eve
was an established part of the calendar of the Roman Catholic
Church. However, after the Reformation, Protestants rejected
Halloween and did not recognize All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day,
because of strict adherence to the Ten Commandments, among which
honoring the dead is not mentioned. Good deeds should not be
carried out for the dead, but for the living. However, the Lutheran
Church was not able to keep people from their need to commemorate
their dead. Thus "Totensonntag" (Sunday of the Dead) was initiated,
to be celebrated by Protestants on the Sunday before the first
Sunday in Advent.

Allerheiligen/All Saint's Day was at first celebrated to honor
all martyrs, later including all saints, known and unknown, and
it now honors all those who died in the faith. The Catholic
calendar is filled with names of saints and martyrs on the day
when they died for their faith in Jesus Christ. Some were celebrated
locally by observing the anniversary of their death, as a feast in
honor of their birth into eternal life. The preservation of relics
was a wide-spread custom. Devout Catholics would take the name of
the saint on whose feast they were baptized and would celebrate
their nameday every year. Over the centuries, as saints were
added, a need for a common feast of all saints was becoming
evident. It was first introduced in 610, when on May 13, Pope
Boniface IV consecrated the ancient Roman Pantheon as a temple
of the Blessed Virgin and All Martyrs ("Sancta Maria ad martyres").
Beginning with Gregory III the celebration of a feast of All Saints
was commemorated at St. Peters on November 1. In 835 Pope Gregory
IV extended this feast to the entire Church.

The feast of Allerseelen/All Souls developed more gradually, first
with a monastic celebration of the departed at the French Monastery
of Cluny in 998, it was then expanded to other monasteries, orders
and dioceses. It was especially for the "Armen Seelen" those poor
souls who were still in purgatory and had not yet reached their
full communion with God.

Beginning in the 14th century it was celebrated just one day later,
on November 2. Because All Souls' Day confronted people with death and their deceased relatives, All Saints' Day lost much of its
earlier radiance. Requiem masses, cemetery processions, decorated
graves with flowers and wreaths, alms and good deeds, were intended
to shorten the time of suffering of the souls of the deceased in
purgatory.

All Saints/All Souls over time became a celebration of the community
and the extended family. All dead of a village will congregate for
the "Geistermesse." All living members of a family try to return
to their native village. In procession one moves to the graveyard
and the graves, decorated and lighted with small lamps. The custom
of decorating the graves makes the symbolic connection between the
graveyard "Gottesacker" and the Garden of Eden, the lost paradise,
where Adam and Eve were placed at creation. Now, the souls of the
ancestors are to rediscover paradise after the difficult path
through purgatory. Placing candles on the grave goes back to
the idea that light is necessary for illumination and to see God.

In Catholic Austria at noon on All Saints' Day there may be a whole
hour of "Schidungsläuten" or "Seelenausläuten." The souls are released
until in the morning after All Souls the bells give the sign for
parting. The customs in Austria are determined by a belief in a
bodily presence. At All Saints/All Souls the departed are everywhere,
in the dark, above the graves of the cemetery, on the paths in the
fields, they travel in the wind and can be in frogs and toads. They
are in church and walk alongside the living and sit at the table at
meal time.

Frequently donations of food will be given to the poor or to children.
The children receive gifts from the god parents or walk around the
village in "Heischeumzügen" (asking for a small gift) with an All
Souls song.

In Germany Allerheiligen/All Saint's Day on November 1 is an official
holiday. People visit and spruce up the graves of their loved ones, and
to bring a flower arrangement, a heart, wreath or cross made of
evergreens and pines. German graves are planted with evergreens
and flowers all year round. In 1993 the author of this participated
in the All Saints/All Souls celebration in a small village in Bavaria.
In the "Allerheiligen Gottesdienst" (church service), the sermon dealt
with "all saints," all those, past and present who live a godly life.
Family members, living out of town returned to the village. At noon
there was a big family dinner followed by a procession to the cemetery.
In the afternoon another family gathering took place at home for
"Kaffee und Kuchen." On the next morning, All Souls' Day, there
was a church service and prayers for the dead.

All Saints'/All Souls' Day services as serious Christian observations
are limited to the Catholic Church in America and hence are barely--
if at all--noticed by the general public. Their exclusive religious
character doesn't permit secularization/commercialization.

On All Saints/All Souls at St. Joseph's Church in Jasper, Indiana,
there is a Mass and, weather permitting, a procession from the church
all around the cemetery. In the middle of the cemetery at the cross,
there is a prayer, and the choir sings special songs for the holy
souls. People who can get off work come to Mass. There is a book
at the church where the names of the deceased are entered.
During the service someone from the deceased's family comes to
the altar and in rotation goes to the rostrum and tells that
person's name. This is done to remember those members of the
parish who have died through the year.

There are also individual visits to the graves, and there is a
bottle of holy water to sprinkle on the graves. Everyone goes to
decorate the graves on All Souls Day and on Memorial Day. If real
flowers are used, graves are decorated in the morning before the
procession or the day before. With artificial flowers the grave
can be decorated earlier.